Pro Kabaddi back with home and away format, sees strong increase in talent pool

Kabaddi. Image: Pro Kabaddi League

The Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) recently concluded its player auction for its 10th season with a bigger purse than the last season, helping franchises to build better teams. The league is also back to playing in 12 cities unlike the previous few seasons when it was restricted due to the pandemic impact.

The league has increased the purse size from Rs 4.5 crore to Rs 5 crore and this will give teams to go after big stars, said Anupam Goswami, chief executive and league commissioner of PKL.

"We also got representatives from more countries for this season. There are players from nine overseas countries as compared to six last year," he told Moneycontrol.

During the player auction for season 10 of PKL, Iranian players struck gold in Category C and Amirmohammad Zafardanesh became the most expensive player who was acquired by U Mumba for Rs 68 lakh. Another Iranian player wiht the highest bid was Amirhossein Bastami who was bought by Tamil Thalaivas for Rs 30 lakh.

Also read: Pro Kabbadi League returns to caravan style but with 3 cities

Pawan Sehrawat, who was acquired by Telugu Titans for Rs 2.6 crore, emerged as the most expensive buy at the two-day event which was held on October 9 and 10. A total of 118 players were sold to the 12 franchises.

"The league started with around 100 players for the auction. This season, we have got over 500 athletes in the pool. Kabaddi academies have mushroomed in places like Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and parents are sending their children very early on to prepare for careers in kabaddi. The average age of players was younger for kabaddi in Asian Games than the previous contingents and this is because young players have come forward to play," said Goswami.

Building the talent pool is also the focus for the women's PKL. "The women's kabaddi team has come back with a gold from Asian Games and that is bound to give an impetus to ongoing consideration. We have made an announcement for a women’s league. The challenge is the overall talent pool. In many sports, there is a challenge to build an adequate player pool for women. This is the area we are looking to work on," Goswami said.

Also read: Star India retains Pro Kabaddi League media rights for 5 years, to pay over Rs 180 crore per season

Home and away format comes back

In season 10, PKL is going back to 12 cities from three cities in season 9.

"We have systematically rebooted the league. This will unlock fan following of the league, it will also unlock strategy and planning of PKL teams to understand their fan catchments and needs of fans," Goswami said.

On TV, PKL recorded over 17 percent higher viewership at 22.2 crore in season 9 versus the previous edition. Goswami said that PKL is the second most viewed sports league outside of cricket. The Indian Premier League (IPL) for its 16th season in 2023 recorded 50.5 crore viewers on TV.

Also read: Women's Pro Kabaddi League: Organisers moot WPL-styled league

Sponsorship and expansion

"For a sport like kabaddi, the atmosphere in a stadium is great. The six week carnival in every city coming back after a few years is good for the sport and for fans. The home base helps you to build brand portfolio," said Suhail Chandhok, CEO of U Mumba.

He said that conversations to close sponsors is moving faster and prices are higher than the previous editions. "There is a lot of hype around PKL as it is coming back with home and away. We are seeing a sizeable jump in sponsorship revenue and expect 60 percent jump in terms of jersey sponsorship value from Season 9," Chandhok said.

The PKL franchises have sold 50 percent of team sponsorship inventory.

Chandhok added that for PKL teams the focus has always been to scale up. "For the founding eight teams, the break even happened in the second season of the league. Breaking even was not a problem and the focus has been to scale up. Teams are profitable in PKL and they are running other sporting franchises from those profits,"  he said.

Also read: Has Pro Kabaddi League lost its charm? A look at the reasons behind the slump in ratings

Goswami said that there are substantial number of comments where team owners have said they have broken even. "Many PKL teams are reporting durable balance sheets. No league outside cricket can make this claim in India."

He also said that there is sufficient interest to acquire PKL teams. "Right now, we need to improve quality of competition including emergence of international players. When the time comes we will look at expansion in number of teams."